Electric Scooter Sharing Market: Current Situation and Predictions

Electric vehicles are revolutionizing the market. Increasing traffic congestion, the need for micro-mobility, emission-free and economical means of transportation led to a boom in the market for electric scooter business.

 According to the report, the global market for bikes and e-scooter business is projected to grow up to 10.1 billion by 2027. The key companies dominating the industry are Bird and Lime in the USA, Cityscoot in France, Coup and Nextbike in Germany, and Ofo and Grow Mobility in China. 

If you’re going to establish leadership in the electric vehicle industry in your region, here is a detailed guide on what you need to begin, how much it would cost, and whether this idea is still profitable in 2022.

What is Required for an Escooter Business

E-vehicle business required at least three essential elements for vitality: management staff, turnkey software, and of course the vehicles themselves. Let’s cover each topic in more detail.

Scooters

You will need at least 10-12 to organize a business. The most important here is to establish a partnership with a reliable provider of vehicles who can rent or sell scooters. One of the best models for starting your own fleet of vehicles is Shenzhen X890 for its excellent technical characteristics.

Electric Scooter Software

To manage and track scooters as well as interact with users, you need scooter rental software. It often goes equipped with two modules: application for clients and CRM for management personnel. 

Client App. Contains all the essentials for a seamless user experience, as well as lets you keep them engaged with your business. This is done by embedding such features as an online secure payment gateway, GPS, sending promo codes, special offers, etc. 

CRM for Managers. Empowers responsible staff to manage the ongoing processes e.g. tracking vehicles, viewing the history of ideas, creating promo codes, setting up staff rights, and more. 

There are 3 common scenarios on how to get software for your electric scooter business. These are custom development from scratch, customization of ready-made solutions, and electric scooter franchise which is the most reasonable choice in terms of affordability and time-to-market. 

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Electric Scooter Franchise: What is It and How Much Does it Cost?

Maintenance Staff

The electric scooter business requires a great selection of personnel to maintain all the internal and external processes. The team often consists of chargers who monitor the condition of vehicles, repair and maintain them, managers to arrange battery charging and make decisions on the best places for scooter placing, and customer support representatives who will talk to customers and handle incidents.  

Profitability of E-vehicle Business: Precise Calculations

Know when you’re aware of what is required to start an electric scooter business, let’s make precise calculations. We’re considering the approximate profitability based on the example of a scooter sharing business with a fleet of 50 vehicles operating in a US city with 250,000 inhabitants. Calculations are approximate and do not cover such factors as taxes, vandalism rate, and competition level.

 Startup Cost

At this stage, your business is improbable to start generating revenue as you will need to cover such expenses as business registration cost,  software setting, purchase or rent of vehicle fleet, premise rent, and technical expenses such as purchasing cars for chargers. The cost of starting an e-scooter business is around $70,000-110,000.

Maintenance Cost

To support your business as it starts generating income, you need to cover current expenses: taxes, employee wages, rent, car expenses, maintaining and repairing vehicles, insurance, accounting, and legal services, and update of spare funds part.The total business maintenance cost, indicated on the business card, is $550,000-700,000 per annum

Income

We’re approaching the most anticipated part: what income would the electric scooter business generate? What we know is that the cost of a ride consists of an unlocking fee of $1 and a rate per minute – of 0.15 to 0.30 USD. The electric scooter rental business runs only in favorable weather conditions (when the temperature is above 0 or on no rainy days) which is usually 230 days per year. Based on Rexsoft experience, one scooter can generate up to $70 daily income. Thus, a fleet of 50 scooters can bring around $1,200,000 per season.

So, electric scooter sharing is a profitable business idea as it can return the startup expenses and cover maintenance costs for only one season. It only takes a fleet of vehicles, a turnkey software solution, and a team of enthusiasts to make your business competitive.